Adjective: uncanny
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | uncannier |
| Superlative | uncanniest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
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He bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead sailor.
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An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. [1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 200:]
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These men had some uncanny knack of knowing when the steel was right, and like many such things, it just could not be put into a textbook on the subject. [1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 14:]
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The new iPhone promises “next level” photography with push-button ease. But the results look odd and uncanny. [2022 March 18, Kyle Chayka, “Have iPhone Cameras Become Too Smart?”, in The New Yorker:]
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These videos also allow us to register through fresh eyes the hyperabundance that exists in our country, and experience just how uncanny some of it really is. [2026 July 9, Sophie Haigney, “World Cup Tourists Are Giving Americans Exactly What We Crave”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:]
Adjectives inflected like uncanny
syrupy,
seemly,
seggsy,
snuffy,
snippy,
snitty,
sniffy,
snotty,
snouty,
snobby,
snoozy,
snooty,
snazzy,
snappy,
snarky,
snarly,
snassy,
snaily,
snacky,
snaggy, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From un- + canny; thus “beyond one's ken,” or outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions. Compare Middle English unkanne (“unknown”). In the noun sense a translation of Sigmund Freud's usage of German unheimlich (Das Unheimliche, 1919). See: German Adjectives '
unheimlich'.